A funding agreement has been signed by PayWay Ethiopia, a digital payments solution firm, to be one of the Li-Way program’s implementing partners.
LI-WAY is a five-year project led by SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, MercyCorps, TechnoServe, and Save the Children International, and implemented by a consortium of partners.
It’s a program aimed at reducing poverty in Addis Ababa while also improving gender ties and social stability.
The program’s specific goal is to improve the lives of 200,000 people living in poverty, with women accounting for 50% of the population and youth accounting for 75%.
LI-WAY intends to accomplish this by focusing on increasing their income and expanding their economic opportunities in Ethiopia.
The consortium has been searching for service providers in capacity building and financial facilitators in order to introduce the Li-Way Digital Payment for Jobs Creation intervention.
PayWay Ethiopia will contribute by creating employment for payment agents and facilitating payment in Ethiopia. SNV Li-Way, Awash Bank, and iceaddis are among the other implementing partners.
PayWay Ethiopia also believes that the newly formed partnerships would enable it to communicate with local services such as utility payment, for which it already has an established and tested system.
In terms of expanding operations, PayWay Ethiopia will be able to integrate its payment system with Awash Bank as a result of this collaboration.
For float management, the PayWay mechanism is already linked to the Bank of Abyssinia.
“This funding agreement will help us grow our operations,” Payway Ethiopia’s Managing Partner, Hilina Damte, said. We will be able to hire, train, and equip new agents to help Ethiopians use instant payment systems.”
PayWay Ethiopia currently has 50 agents, and with this partnership, it hopes to raise that number to 1,000.
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